by Dan Abnett
At the orbital Watchtower, Server Uhl Kehal Hesst of the Mechanicum has switched from discretionary mode in order to pursue and eradicate the scrapcode issue. He will fail to do so. He will spend the rest of his life failing to do so.
The scrapcode issue is no longer resolvable by means of the Mechanicum.
The Octed is implanted.
8
[mark: -4.44.10]
Aeonid Thiel wakes. He only slipped into rest mode briefly. He was bored. He has been waiting a long while. No one has come.
He wakes because he is no longer alone in the fortieth deck anteroom.
He bows at once.
‘Are you Thiel?’ asks Guilliman.
‘Yes, lord,’ Thiel replies.
The primarch seems distracted. He can probably tell which weapons have been used and put back, which practice cages have been operated.
‘You’ve been waiting here for some time.’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘There’s a lot to do today. My attention has been elsewhere.’
It’s not an apology, it’s just a basic explanation. Thiel wants to say that he doesn’t really know why the primarch’s dealing with it at all, but he knows better than that.
‘Were you amusing yourself?’ asks Guilliman, taking a broadsword off a wall rack and examining its edge.
‘I… I decided to pass the time in practice,’ Thiel answers. ‘There are weapons here I am unfamiliar with. I thought that I might benefit from–’
Guilliman nods. The nod means shut up.
Thiel shuts up.
Guilliman studies the sword he is holding. He doesn’t look at Thiel. Thiel has risen to attention, waiting. His helmet, with its crude, red paint-wash to indicate censure, is tucked under his arm.
‘I didn’t come here for you,’ Guilliman says. ‘I came away to think. I forgot you were here.’
Thiel makes no comment.
‘That’s a depressing thought,’ says Guilliman, sliding the sword back onto the rack. ‘I forgot something. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share that unguarded confession with anybody.’
‘Of course, lord. Though I hardly blame you for forgetting me. I am a very minor detail.’
Now the primarch looks at him.
‘Two things to note there, sergeant. One is that there is no such thing as a minor detail. Information is victory. One cannot and should not dismiss any data as inconsequential until one is in a position to evaluate its significance, and that only comes with hindsight. So all detail is important until circumstances render it redundant.’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘What’s the second thing, Thiel?’
Aeonid Thiel hesitates slightly before answering.
‘By any scale of decency,’ he replies, ‘my infraction was reprehensible. I am, therefore, not a minor detail anyway.’
‘Quite,’ says Guilliman.
The primarch turns and looks up at the high ceiling of the chamber. There is a slight heat-haze distortion in the air above the practice cages that Thiel has spent the last hours overworking.
‘I think I may have offended him,’ says Guilliman.
‘Lord?’
Guilliman looks back at Thiel. He fixes him with a thoughtful gaze.
‘This is a day of great sensitivity,’ he says. ‘We’re building a part of the Imperium’s future as surely as if we were making a star system compliant. We’re cementing a relationship. Repairing a weakness. It’s political. The rift between XIII and XVII is a rift in the Imperial line. Horus knows that. That’s why he’s sewing it up, and we can all swallow our distaste over it.’
Guilliman rubs his cheekbone with his fingertips. He is pensive.
‘The future depends on the solidarity of the Legions,’ he says. ‘Where solidarity is weak, where it is lacking, it must be repaired or enforced. And this is forced. This is us getting along with each other for the greater good.’
Thiel chooses to remain silent.
‘He is so… changeable,’ Guilliman says. ‘He is so prone to extremes. Eager to please, quick to take offence. There is no middle to him. He’s so keen to be your best friend, and then, at the slightest perception of an insult, he’s angry with you. Furious. Offended. Like a child. If he wasn’t my brother, he’d be a political embarrassment and an impediment to the effective rule of the Imperium. I know what I’d do with him.’
‘I’m sure I could demonstrate how, lord,’ says Thiel, and then winces.
‘Was that a joke, sergeant?’
‘I may have just made a very unfortunate attempt at humour, lord,’ Thiel admits.
‘It was actually quite funny,’ says Guilliman.
He turns to leave.
‘Remain here. I’ll get to you in due course.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
[mark: -3.01.10]
‘Trooper Persson,’ Graft calls as he whirrs up the track. The estuary wind is rising, swishing the swartgrass. There’s an empty, metal smell of cold water and mud. It will be night soon. The lights are coming on in and around the fortalice, and their reflections are bobbing on the black river.
‘Trooper Persson,’ the servitor calls.
It’s time to stop. The end of the day’s toil. Wash up, grace and supper. Oll is weary, but he’s about eight rows back from where he thought he’d be. Too much of the day spent looking up at the sky, at the running lights of ships. Too much of the day wasted watching the heavy landers glinting as they pass overhead.
Graft trundles up to him. The servitor’s huge bulk-extension upper limbs, built for ammo loading, have been replaced by basic cargo shifting arms.
‘Time to stop, Trooper Persson,’ Graft says.
Oll nods. They’ve done what they can with the light.
But he doesn’t feel like it’s time to stop. It feels like something’s about to start.
[mark: -1.43.32]
Ventanus and Selaton watch Arbute talking to another gang of labour guild officials. Behind them, a bulk-lander as huge and drab as a cliff face is slowly backing into a cargo silo. Oil stains shine on the rockcrete ground.
‘I don’t know why it’s so difficult,’ says Selaton. ‘She tells them to work harder, they work harder. She’s got the authority.’
‘It’s more complex than that.’
‘Is it, captain? They’ve been doing it all day. As far as I can tell, the main quibble seems to be the length and regularity of rest breaks.’
‘Fatigue is an issue,’ Ventanus reminds his sergeant. ‘A human issue. We need cooperation. We have to acknowledge their qualities.’
‘Weaknesses you mean.’
‘Qualities.’
‘It makes me profoundly glad I’m not an elective human,’ says Selaton.
Ventanus laughs.
‘Still, it’s us who’ll get strung up by the primarch if the muster falls behind.’
‘No, it’s me who’ll get it,’ said Ventanus. ‘And we won’t fall behind. The seneschal is pretty persuasive.’
‘Really, sir?’
‘I think the guild was dragging its heels because it thought bonus payments should be on offer.’
‘Deliberately going slow?’ asks Selaton, the notion alien to him.
‘Yes, sergeant. They make a fuss about overwork, negotiate themselves some hefty bonus fees, and then have a little slack they can take up so they look like they’re working hard. I think our new friend Seneschal Arbute has made them buck their ideas up by introducing new concepts such as patriotism, and the favourable disposition of the primarch.’
Selaton nods.
The sky over the starport is fulminous grey, with rack rides of cloud chased by the wind and backlit by the setting sun. The lights of incoming transports shine especially bright.
‘We’re losing the light,’ says Selaton. ‘Earlier than estimated.’
‘A result of the storm,’ says Ventanus.
‘Probably,’ agrees Selaton.
[mark: -1.01.20]
The fleet tender Campa
nile passes the inner Mandeville Point of the Veridian System, outer marker ring 16, and the local picket. It broadcasts full and correct anchorage codes to the watch ships at ring 14, and to the Veridius Maxim Star Fort. The Star Fort retracts its target acquisition lock and signals the tender to pass.
The ship appears to be decelerating.
[mark: -0.55.37]
Teleport flare. The crackle of the energy burst shivers across the open hillside, and ozone taints the cold northern air.
Erebus, Dark Apostle, becomes flesh, and emerges from the scratch of light. He is not clad in ceremonial armour, he is wearing wargear that has been stripped down to fighting weight, darkened with ashes and inscribed over its entire surface with tiny, spidery script.
A strike team is waiting for him. Its leader is Essember Zote of the Gal Vorbak, a warrior of the most incendiary fury. His sword is already drawn. His armour is the colour of blood.
This is how their enemies will know them. Blood red, the colour of fire, the colour of hell, the colour of gore, the colour of the Octed.
Zote has a work party of the Tzenvar Kaul with him, seventy men, all childless. They have been working since they arrived at dawn on one of the first ships.
The Satric Plateau, two thousand kilometres north of Numinus City, is a lonely place. The hard winter has already arrived. Because of its size and terrain, the Satric region was chosen as one of the sixty-eight staging fields for the operation. Landers are parked all along the line of the slope, cargo hatches open to the grey sky.
Erebus inspects the work.
This particular area of the Satric Plateau, sheened with frost, is especially perfect. It took several days of comparative study with the orbital scans to determine its perfection compared to other potential sites. It is consistently flat in relation to sea level. It is aligned according to magnetic north and the tidal process, and has favourable moonrise on the day of the conjunction. It possesses other qualities too, other qualities that could not be disclosed by standard Imperial physics. Immaterium vectors are in alignment. The skin of the empyrean is thin here tonight.
This is the true conjunction. Erebus reflects upon how remarkably perfect it is. Not just workable or suitable or acceptable. Perfect. From today, for the next sixty days. It is as though some power somewhere manufactured the perfection at exactly the right time.
The men of the Kaul have laid the circle. Polished black rocks, each taken from the volcanic slopes of Isstvan V and marked with a sigil, are arranged in a perfect circle a kilometre in diameter.
Erebus takes the last rock from Zote. They are summoning stones. The latent power in them makes him feel sick, just taking one in his hand.
He places it in the gap in the circle. It clacks against the stones on either side as he sets it.
‘Begin,’ he tells Zote.
The men of the Tzenvar Kaul approach, carrying other offerings from the Isstvan system. In procession, they bear along portable stasis flasks like censers in some Catheric worship. The fluid in the stasis flasks is murky with blood. Harvested progenitor glands. Harvested gene-seed. The lost life of betrayed souls now offered for the final blasphemy. There is Salamanders gene-seed here, Iron Hands, Raven Guard. Erebus knows that the Ruinous Powers make no distinctions, so there is other gene-seed here besides: Emperor’s Children, Death Guard, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, even Luna Wolf. Any that fell during the secret abominations of Isstvan III or V are suitable.
Erebus stops the first man in the procession, and strokes the glass of the stasis flask. He knows what’s in it, the mangled tissue in the cloudy suspension.
‘Tarik…’ he whispers.
He nods. The Kaul start to carry the flasks into the circle. The moment they cross the stones, the bearers start to whimper and retch. Several pass out, or suffer strokes, and fall, smashing the flasks.
It doesn’t matter.
The moon is rising, a pale curl in a mauve sky already busy with lights.
Zote hands Erebus a data-slate, and the Apostle checks the approach timings. He is data tracking using anchorage codes.
He hands the slate back and takes the vox-link in exchange.
‘Now,’ he says.
[mark: -0.40.20]
‘Acknowledged,’ replies Sorot Tchure.
He walks back to join the others. His men are mingling with the men of Luciel’s company on the company decks of the Samothrace. They have finished the formal dinner that Luciel had arranged. None need to eat, certainly not the fine foodstuffs that Luciel provided, but it is a symbolic gesture. To dine as allies, as warrior-kings. To bond ahead of the coming war.
‘Problem?’ asks Luciel.
Tchure shakes his head.
‘Some question about loading platforms.’
Tchure looks at Luciel.
‘Why have you changed your markings and armour field?’ asks Luciel.
‘We are remaking ourselves,’ Tchure replies. ‘A new scheme to celebrate our new beginning. Perhaps it is down to the character of our beloved primarch, may the cosmos bless him. We have never quite found ourselves, Honorius. Not like you. We have struggled to realise a proper role for ourselves. I do not believe you appreciate how fortunate you are. The clarity of your purpose and position as Ultramarines. From the start you had a reputation that never needed to be questioned, and a function that never needed to be clarified.’
He pauses.
‘For years, I have despised Lorgar,’ he says quietly.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Sorot, you mustn’t–’
‘Look at your primarch, Honorius. So singular in aspect. So noble. I have envied you, envied the Imperial Fists, the Luna Wolves, the Iron Hands. And I am not alone. We struggle with a mercurial mind, Honorius. We labour under the burden of a brilliant but fallible commander. We no longer bear the word, my friend. We bear Lorgar.’
‘Some fall into their roles quickly,’ says Luciel firmly. ‘I have thought about this. Some fall into their roles quickly. Others take time to evolve, to discover what their purpose is to be. Your primarch, great Lorgar, is a son of the Emperor. There will be a role for him. It may turn out to be far greater than any that falls to Guilliman or Dorn. Yes, we’re lucky to have clarity. I know that. So are the Fists, the Hands, the Angels. Terra above, so are the Wolves of Fenris and the World Eaters, Sorot. Perhaps the lack of clarity you have laboured under thus far is because Lorgar’s role is yet unimaginable.’
Tchure smiles.
‘I can’t believe you’re defending him.’
‘Why can’t you?’
Tchure shrugs.
‘I think we may be finding our purpose at last, Honorius,’ he says. ‘Hence our new resolve. Our change in scheme and armour colour. I… I was asked to join the advance.’
Luciel frowns, quizzical.
‘You told me that.’
‘I have things to prove.’
‘Why?’ asks Luciel.
‘I have to prove my commitment to the new purpose.’
‘And how do you do that?’ asks Luciel.
Tchure doesn’t answer. Luciel notices how the Word Bearer’s fingers stir, tapping the tabletop. What agitation is that? Nerves?
‘I learned something,’ Tchure says suddenly, changing the subject. ‘A little piece of warcraft that I thought you would appreciate.’
Luciel lifts his cup, sips wine.
‘Go on,’ he smiles.
Tchure toys with his own cup, a straight-sided golden beaker.
‘It was on Isstvan, during the fight there.’
‘Isstvan? There’s been fighting in the Isstvan system?’
Tchure nods.
‘It hasn’t been reported. Was it a compliance?’
‘It’s recent,’ says Tchure. ‘The full reports of the campaign are still being ratified by the Warmaster. Then they will be shared.’
Luciel raises his eyebrows.
‘Guilliman won’t appreciate being left ou
t of the loop for any length of time. Is this how the Warmaster intends to conduct the Great Crusade from now on? Guilliman insists on sharing all military data. And Isstvan was compliant–’
Tchure holds up his hand.
‘It’s recent. It’s fresh. It’s done now. Your primarch will hear all about it in due course. The point is, the fight was bitter. The Imperium faced a foe that had discovered the mortal power of treachery.’
‘Treachery?’ asks Luciel.
‘Not as a strategy, you understand. Not as a tactic to surprise and undermine. I mean as a property. A power.’
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ smiles Luciel. slightly disarmed. ‘It’s as though you’re talking about… magic.’
‘I almost am. The enemy believed that there was power in treachery. To win the confidence of your opponent, to mask your animus, and then to turn… Well, they believed that this actually invested them with power.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Don’t you?’ asks Tchure. ‘The potency, they believed, depends on the level of betrayal. If an ally suddenly turns on an ally, that’s one level. But if a trusted friend turns on a friend. That was the purest kind of power, because the treachery ran so deep. Because it required that so many moral codes be broken. Trust. Friendship. Loyalty. Reliance. Honesty. Such an act was powerful because it was beyond belief. It achieved a potency that was akin to the most powerful blood sacrifice.’
Luciel sits back.
‘Interesting, certainly,’ he says. ‘For them to believe that. Culturally, it speaks a great deal to the strength of their honour codes. If they believed this invested them with power, then it seems like an act of superstition. It has little strategic merit in terms of warcraft or technique, of course. Except, I suppose, psychologically.’
‘It certainly worked for them.’
‘Until you crushed them, of course.’
Sorot Tchure does not reply.
‘What’s the matter?’ asks Luciel.
‘It’s like a sacrifice,’ says Tchure. ‘You identify and commit the greatest betrayal possible, and it is like a sacrifice to anoint and begin a vast ceremony of victory and destruction.’
